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A story from this morning drives home that Donald Trump’s foreign policy (perhaps ‘policy’ is too optimistic a word) has descended into farce:
Russia attacks Ukrainian power plant hours after Trump ‘ceasefire’
Moscow strikes with drones and glide bombs despite US president’s surprise claim of an energy truce
Is there any evidence either Ukraine or Russia actually agreed to any cessation of strikes against energy targets?
When I started using ChatGPT, I encountered answers that were phrased with great certainty but were in fact ‘hallucinations’ with no basis in reality whatsoever. And by that I mean the AI invented an ice-cream parlour, with a technical description of how its ice-cream was made and a street address… which proved to have never existed and address was a parking lot in Prague.
Welcome to TrumpGPT
The first was the Church of England, which tore its liturgical and theological inheritance in tatters and now presides over a moral irrelevance in the life of the nation. The grandest was the Bank of England. In May 1997 a Labour government handed control of interest rates to unelected officials, and Paul Tucker, later the Bank’s deputy governor, has noted the irony that it took a government of the left to do what the right had long talked about.⁵² The courts followed. In his 2019 Reith Lectures Jonathan Sumption, recently retired from the Supreme Court, described foreign policy, military operations and the prerogative powers of the Crown having “one by one yielded to the power of judges”.⁵³ His critics say he exaggerates, and Policy Exchange’s Judicial Power Project has spent a decade arguing about where the line should sit, but nobody disputes the direction of travel.
Then came the quangos. The number of central government public bodies rose from 474 in January 2015 to 603 in January 2025.⁵⁴ Last month a Cabinet Office minister told the Commons there were 306 arm’s-length bodies, a third of them due for reform, while a Conservative MP put the true figure at over 400, spending more than £390 billion a year, one pound in every three the government spends.⁵⁵ The definitions are as slippery as the numbers. What none of these bodies has to do is face an election. Cobbett would have recognised the arrangement at once, and so would Wade. In 2023–24 at least 343 quango staff were paid more than £200,000.⁵⁶ We’ve just stopped calling them sinecures.
Its enemies have a name for this world. The Blob.
– Gawain Towler demonstrating once again that Reform really do understand the shape and nature of the enemy. A long read that is well worth your time.
Why are such “small” sites not viable for the large developers? More pertinently perhaps, why are there not small developers who choose to build on sites of such scale? Because the bureaucracy – that interminable fight through the local council to gain planning, the demands for most of the profit to arrive as social housing and on and on – means that no small scale builder can survive. It’s necessary to be operating at a large scale to pay for all of that. You simply have to be a large organisation, building at scale, to be able to afford the army of your own bureaucrats necessary to fight the state.
So, abolish that bureaucracy and small scale builders will reappear and those 850,000 homes will be built.
850,000 houses missing in London alone. That’s what the current planning system denies us all. Probably a good idea to fire the bureaucrats and have the houses instead.
– Tim Worstall
Wales deserves a closer look. Turnout was 50.1 per cent. Yes won by 559,419 to 552,698, a margin of 6,721 votes, settled only when Carmarthen declared last. Barely a quarter of the Welsh electorate voted for the body that now sits in Cardiff Bay as the Senedd. In 2011 a further referendum gave it primary lawmaking powers on a turnout of 35.6 per cent.
Nobody now argues that a 0.6 per cent margin on half a turnout denied the Assembly its legitimacy. Devolution’s supporters treat that September night as the founding act of modern Welsh democracy, and they are entitled to. But the principle has to run both ways. If one in four Welsh electors can found a legislature, then 17.4 million votes on a 72.2 per cent turnout, the largest vote for anything in British history, cannot be treated as provisional.
– Gawain Towler
About a year ago Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry stirred up controversy by suggesting that Rishi Sunak, former British Prime Minister, was “not English”. At the time, I tried to write something and failed miserably. The other week the controversy flared up again as Sunak, himself, belatedly commented on the affair. Once again, I tried to write something and once again I failed. I kept tying myself up in knots before coming to the conclusion that it was all a bit futile. The real question – the important question – is whether someone is pro-British or anti-British. Having said that there has to be something to be pro or anti, which implies the existence of Britishness. So what is this Britishness? It is largely ethnic but not entirely. People can join and they can leave.
So, going back to the original question, where does Rishi Sunak fit on this British/pro-British/anti-British spectrum? Well, he’s not British and given his actions in office it is difficult to tell whether he is pro or anti. Next question: what about Keir Starmer?
P.S. I wrote this before watching Kisin’s most recent monologue. Which was a mistake because he does a much better job of explaining the situation before suggesting the obvious solution: re-establish the British Empire.
“Miliband appears determined to maintain his antagonistic approach towards Israel, despite the recent revelation that the Israelis tipped off their British counterparts about the recent terror plot aimed at RAF Fairford, which has so far resulted in the arrest of seven suspects. While Miliband’s anti-Israel stance might appeal to Labour’s vocal pro-Palestinian lobby, his preference for puerile gesture politics will be counter-productive in so far as the UK’s broader national security interests are concerned.”
– Con Coughlin, Daily Telegraph (£). The headline of the article is “Ed Miliband won’t admit that Israel is doing the UK’s dirty work.”
The word “contempt” is too mild to really capture the range of thoughts and emotions that I have about the current UK foreign secretary and former energy minister. His conduct in office (including at energy given his championing of Net Zero, regardless of changed circumstances) has increased the vulnerability of the UK, and he has taken such actions largely out of a blinkered ideological worldview and disregard for national security. As such, he illustrates the dangers of what Gad Saad has dubbed “suicidal empathy”.
Three years ago today, Gazan civilians – not themselves Hamas, just Palestinians taking advantage of an opportunity – abducted Shiri Bibas and her children Ariel aged four and Kfir aged nine months. They were held in captivity for an unknown amount of time before being murdered. The children were probably strangled. Hamas, wishing to be part of the Bibas story, eventually held an elaborate public ceremony, complete with jubilant children dancing on stage, before releasing coffins labelled as containing their dead bodies, along with a coffin containing the body of another murdered hostage, 84 year old Oded Lifshitz. The ceremony was arranged with much forethought. Somebody even took the time to make little plaques to put on the coffins of Shiri Bibas and Oded Lifshitz saying, “Date of arrest: October 7th 2023”.
Date of arrest. Their own words. That’s how they think.
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Related posts:
Shani Louk was half German – some thoughts
Kemi Badenoch MP, one of the contenders to be the next leader of the Conservative party, recently and astonishly caused controversy by saying ‘Not all cultures are equally valid’. I agree with this statement. Some cultures are worse than others. Now that ISIS is gone, Hamas-ruled Gaza is probably the most horrible culture currently present on Earth. Please note that this makes absolutely no difference to the obligation of Israel to adhere to the laws of war, even against an enemy that does not. It just lets the Israelis know what to expect from Gaza if they do not defeat Hamas.
Should we conclude that the Palestinians, or the Gazans, are an accursed people by nature? No. There is a dark mirror to the past in the fact that Shani Louk was half German. In living memory Germany fell as low as any nation in human history. Let us not delude ourselves that the attempted extermination of the Jews was carried out by the Nazi party alone. A brave but tiny minority of Germans who were not Nazis sheltered Jews, a larger minority at least did not report their suspicions that their neighbours were doing so, and the majority obeyed the Nazis so long as they remained in power.
Who would have dreamed eighty years ago that one day the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin would be illuminated with an image of the Star of David to remember Jews murdered in a pogrom? Yes, a mere symbol, but a true symbol – Germany re-joined the family of nations decades ago. What brought about this change? The complete military defeat of the Nazi regime. Cynics observe that the change did not happen until after the defeat. Optimists observe that it did happen after the defeat.
How will you be celebrating International Women’s Day?
“Is Israel Weaponizing the Tragic Deaths of the Bibas Children?”
Especially for Jimi Hendrix Experience fans, Eric Barrett’s Experienced: On the Road with Jimi Hendrix and Beyond is an engrossing and entertaining read featuring new, first-hand information about rock music’s most acclaimed guitarist. With help from Lawrence Robinson, Mr. Barrett provides a well-written memoir of his years as Hendrix’s equipment roadie and rare friend who toured America and Europe with him to the very end.
But what could have been a completely compelling bird’s-eye account of a superstar’s tumultuous life at the height of his fame from 1968 through 1970 is marred by a distracting lack of focus. Instead of invaluable insights about a musical legend from his inner circle, Barrett offers intriguing anecdotes with few clear themes and far too little analysis.
Though the book is presented as being about the guitar great, Barrett continually interrupts the Hendrix narrative with jarring juxtapositions of his later adventures managing concert tours for James Taylor, David Bowie, Madonna, Lenny Kravitz, Billy Idol, and others that would have read much better after discussing Hendrix.
Experienced certainly confirms the consensus that Hendrix was a supremely gifted guitarist. As Barrett contends, “Jimi was easily the greatest musician I ever worked with,” noting that “he
could do things with an electric guitar that I’ve never seen anyone else do.” Enhancing Hendrix’s prodigious skills, the author asserts, was his unmatched showmanship and the fact that he was “the most charismatic person I’d ever met.”
Most endearing is how kind, generous, and “gracious” Hendrix was since Barrett’s boss was generally laid-back, witty (he dismissed the band Fat Mattress as “Thin Pillow”), and friendly to all. On the rare occasion he expressed anger at his roadie for faulty equipment during a show, afterwards he would “put his arm around my shoulders” and be “very apologetic.” Indeed, Barrett notes that, “Even when something made Jimi angry, he’d usually get over it very quickly; he was never one to hold a grudge.”
→ Continue reading: A room full of tragic distractions: Eric Barrett’s “Experienced: On the Road with Jimi Hendrix and Beyond”
Once investors begin to doubt the real return available on sovereign liabilities, the speed with which they can respond becomes important. Modern financial wealth can be reallocated almost instantaneously. An investor dissatisfied with cash or government bonds can move into foreign equities, commodities, gold, property funds or another currency without waiting for wages, consumer prices or conventional money velocity to adjust. Monetary distrust can therefore appear first as a portfolio movement rather than as an immediate surge in spending on goods. This makes attempts to suppress sovereign yields potentially less stable. The wider the gap between the return investors believe they require and the return governments are willing to permit, the stronger the incentive to move elsewhere. In earlier periods, geographical, institutional and technological frictions slowed that process. Today, capital can react to a deterioration in expected real returns within seconds.
– Harry Yew
“Green party votes to adopt policy that equates Zionism with racism”, reports the Guardian.
Members voted at the party’s annual conference in Brighton to back a motion that calls for Zionism, the movement for a Jewish state, to be “treated as any other form of racism”. It passed by 1,022 votes to 813.
It has been publicly opposed by four of the party’s five MPs, although Zack Polanski, the leader of the Greens in England and Wales, has said he does believe Zionism is a racist idea.
The motion, which is now formal policy, calls for a single Palestinian state in place of Israel, “with equal rights for all”.
Adrian Ramsay, one of the MPs and a former party co-leader, said after the vote that he was “deeply saddened” by the decision, and that the idea of endorsing a single Palestinian state did not match Green commitments to self-determination.
In earlier voting, an amendment ensuring other parts of Green policy were updated to take account of the motion was backed. Three other amendments, including one that said the motion should not be used to “pressure, proscribe or discipline members based on affiliation with Jewish community institutions”, were voted down.
The text of the motion includes this passage:
4. The Green Party affirms the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self
determination, including the right of the Palestinian people to resistance and
liberation from Israeli occupation, domination and subjugation, and acknowledges
that the struggle to achieve that liberation by all available means under
international law is legitimate.
The Guardian article also says,
While the proposers of the motion argue it will not be used to discipline Jewish members who support Zionism, it is understood that some members are consulting lawyers over whether the policy could be challenged.
Adam Wagner KC, the barrister who led a case which concluded that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour broke equalities laws over antisemitism, said that such a case would have a good chance of success.
“I think there is a strong risk that the motion as passed contravenes the Equality Act 2010, which applies to political parties, as it will discriminate against and harass people who hold Zionist beliefs and Jewish people more generally,” he said.
“Zionism, defined in the broad sense of supporting the establishment, development and protection of a Jewish nation state in its ancestral homeland, the land of Israel, is likely to be a protected belief under the Equality Act 2010.”
There should be no “protected beliefs”. Though I would strongly advise Jewish Greens, and decent people of any religion or no religion to get out, I support the right of any political party to be whatever it chooses to be. What the Green Party of England and Wales has now chosen to be is a Muslim sectarian party.
The triumph of the various “Gaza Independents” in the 2024 election demonstrates that in the modern UK, a Muslim sectarian party whose main interests lie outside the UK can win seats in Parliament. Nonetheless the victory of this motion at the Green Party conference has made a hitherto quite successful strategy of entryism into a previously existing British party too obvious.
EDIT: In this short video clip, Lubna Speitan, the proposer of the “Zionism is Racism” motion, says
“We will continue until we dismantle Zionism from the world – from every country, from every place. They will be shunned. And, inshallah, that time will come when they are opposed, when they are hunted in the same way as the Nazi oppressors were. This is justice. We will obtain freedom. It won’t happen without force.”
That is where the primary danger lies. The market may require a yield high enough to compensate the private holder for inflation and fiscal risk at precisely the moment the sovereign cannot comfortably afford to pay it. Yet if policymakers prevent yields from rising to the level required to clear the market voluntarily, they have not eliminated that required return. They have merely created an incentive for private capital to leave government debt for foreign assets, commodities, property, gold or anything else expected to preserve purchasing power more effectively. The monetary danger examined later in this article begins when there is no politically tolerable yield at which both the government’s financing needs and the private investor’s required real return can comfortably be satisfied.
One plausible macroeconomic consequence of such a divergence is stagflation, in which both inflation and weak growth coexist. Persistent supply shortages and increasingly expensive capital would weigh on real growth, while the fiscal and monetary response required to prevent financial liquidation would make it difficult to extinguish inflation completely. This is the central problem examined in this article.
– Harry Yew
“Many on the right like to pretend that Britain is a nation of frustrated Thatcherites straining against a socialist establishment. And sure, if you poll the British people in the abstract, support for higher taxes and spending has actually fallen — it’s at its lowest since 2013. But ask about anything specific and the picture inverts. 72% want higher taxes on the top 5%. 61% will pay more themselves for the NHS. 82% want water nationalised, 76% the railways — including 78% and 66% of Reform voters respectively. The British public is against tax and spend in general and in favour of it in every particular, which is the single most useful fact in British politics if you happen to be Andy Burnham. He is simply the first politician with the emotional range to leverage this without sounding like he’s reading a spreadsheet.
So he will get his way. And it will not work.”
– Konstantin Kisin
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